Venezuela Is Struggling With A Historic Food Shortage

Miriam Villae never knows what she'll find on the shelves of her
grocery store in the Venezuela capital these days. Chances are
it's not much.

As the oil-rich country grapples with the highest food shortage
in four years, the 62-year-old grandmother and many others like
her are being forced to make do without staples like flour and
butter.

"Today I found corn meal and oil but there's no sugar," Villae
told AFP as she slipped two packages of maize into her cart at a
Caracas supermarket -- much to the delight of her young grandson.

"Wheat flour has long been missing," she added, noting that, day
after day, she comes to "hunt" for chicken.

"Is there butter, is there butter?" asked another woman excitedly
as both she and Villae gingerly tried to dodge the long lines of
shoppers that formed as word spread about the delivery of oil,
rice and the all important corn meal, used to make arepas and
empanadas.

In December, the Central Bank said its scarcity index, which
tracks the percentage of consumer goods missing from grocery
store shelves, rose to a four-year high of 16.3 percent in
December.

In light of the situation, some supermarkets and bakeries are
restricting the amount people can buy. Some Caracas restaurants
are even cutting back on their menu offerings.

"January is always a tricky month because distributors go on
vacation in December but by mid-month inventories are usually
restocked," said Edgar Parra, manager of a sparsely stocked
grocery store in Caracas where customers scrounged for items.
"Not this time around."

The government, which earlier this year launched a plan to
prevent shortages and introduced price controls in 2003, blames
the bare shelves on an increase in consumption -- along with
hoarding by producers and speculators.

Led by ailing leader Hugo Chavez, who has not been seen in public
for weeks after leaving the country to undergo cancer surgery in
Cuba, the government alleges that the private sector is trying to
force an increase in prices and a devaluation of the official
exchange rate.

"They have proposed that prices be freed, that foreign exchange
controls be ended and that state-owned enterprises be
privatized," Vice President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez's designated
heir, said recently.

Officials have also accused the opposition of trying to
destabilize the country amid political uncertainty in the absence
of Chavez, the once omnipresent and outspoken leftist firebrand
who missed his inauguration to a third six-year term on January
10 due to poor health.

But analysts, such as Luis Vicente Leon, head of the Datanalisis
polling firm, disagreed.

"Obviously, the Venezuelan economy is full of hoarders and
speculators, they're the product of the controls and the
hostility," he tweeted. "The real problem is there are not enough
products to meet demand."

Roberto Leon, president of the ANAUCO consumer advocacy
association, pointed to multiple causes -- including a high
dependence on food imports and bureaucratic hurdles.